acrid
Americanadjective
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sharp or biting to the taste or smell; bitterly pungent; irritating to the eyes, nose, etc..
acrid smoke from burning rubber.
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extremely or sharply stinging or bitter; exceedingly caustic.
acrid remarks.
adjective
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unpleasantly pungent or sharp to the smell or taste
-
sharp or caustic, esp in speech or nature
Other Word Forms
- acridity noun
- acridly adverb
- acridness noun
- subacrid adjective
- subacridity noun
- subacridly adverb
- subacridness noun
Etymology
Origin of acrid
1705–15; < Latin ācr- (stem of ācer ) sharp, sour + -id 4, perhaps through influence of acid
Explanation
Acrid is almost always used to describe a smell, and it ain't a pretty one. Acrid is the nasty sting that you feel in your nose when you walk by a building that just burned down — it's sulfur mixed with smoke. You can also use acrid to describe someone's tone or general demeanor when they are being nasty. Someone about to do something evil might first give an acrid sneer, or speak in a chillingly acrid tone of voice, or even shudder as if they'd just bit into something with an acrid taste.
Vocabulary lists containing acrid
Lord of the Flies
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The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 8
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Burnt garlic is acrid and unforgiving; here, it should dissolve into the base of the sauce, barely visible but deeply present.
From Salon • Apr. 7, 2026
The acrid smoke wafting from burning waste in her neighbourhood in Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos, made it hard to breathe.
From Barron's • Oct. 30, 2025
The last was in July 2023, when a colleague complained of an acrid or vomit-like smell and was struggling to breathe as their aircraft taxied down the runway.
From The Wall Street Journal • Sep. 14, 2025
The producer said she could feel the acrid smoke catch the back of her throat and start to sting her eyes.
From BBC • Aug. 27, 2025
Gilbert Lewis remained rooted in small science, happily puffing away on his acrid black cigars at a workbench festooned with hand-blown glassware.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
